Antique Safes/Detroit Safe Wall Material

I have a Detroit safe, D.O.Paige's Patent July, 29 1873 on interior of door, that is missing the stair step metal door amp on the hinge side. This exposes the wall material. Do you know the composition of the wall material. Want to make sure it is not HAZMAT before I invest any effort to use the safe.

AnswerTom,

I have no records of this company ever using asbestos as an insulation material. Generally manufacturers at this time were using mixes of mortar, gypsum, plaster of Paris, Alum and several similar type items. While every company had their own "proprietary" mixes, they protected items like this vigoursly by keeping the mix secret, and using patents for protection. There were a lot of manufacturers that would simply copy each other.

If you want to ensure that it has no asbestos, you can have the insulation tested by a local HAZMAT test site.

Chances are it is not, though.

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